A 12-year-old girl was rescued on Monday from the house of a retired collector at IRC Village in Bhubaneswar where she was working as a domestic help.

The former bureaucrat’s son is a professor at the National Law University in Hyderabad and his daughter-in-law runs an English medium school for kids at IRC Village.

“The child was trafficked from her village at Berhampur in November 2020 and was engaged in domestic servitude. When she was trafficked, she was studying in Class V. Though the daughter-in-law of the house owner runs a school in Bhubaneswar, she never allowed this girl to sit in the classroom. It is really shameful. The girl’s father is a rickshaw puller and her mother works as a domestic help.” Childline director Dr Benudhar Senapati told The Telegraph.

The director said the officer concerned had served as Ganjam collector and retired in 1994.

“Using his contacts, he had managed to bring the girl from Berhampur in Ganjam district to Bhubaneswar. It needs to be investigated how many children he had engaged as domestic help over the years. It’s also shameful that his son allowed such things to happen despite being a teacher of laws.”